LeBron James has to be in playoff mode. This is the final stretch of the season, and every game counts. They’ve been on the verge of the playoffs several times but never made it to a comfortable position.
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There were all sorts of excuses floating around. Bad teammates, bad rotations, bad refereeing, and bad luck. The Lakers faithful were down and ready to give up on the season. And then Rob Pelinka had a blinder of a trade deadline, giving LeBron all the arsenal he needed.
That translated to two wins in two games after the construction of the new roster. The team now looks more confident than ever, winning against two direct playoff rivals. Skip Bayless sat up to take notice, calling the Lakers 30% better than the previous roster. This is a tall claim that may have been made too soon, but things are looking positive.
Skip claims that the Lakers will only lose six more games of the 23 left. For someone who’s hated the Lakers all season, putting them in such a positive light is uncharacteristic of him. So why did he make such a bold claim?
The Lakers are 30% better without Westbrook and with all the new additions. They’ll go 17-6 in their final 23 and will rise above the play-in. I wouldn’t be surprised if they played Phoenix in the West finals.
— Skip Bayless (@RealSkipBayless) February 24, 2023
Skip Bayless is setting up LeBron James for failure in his eyes
After finally breaking the greatest individual record of all time, LeBron James is finally ready to make that push into the playoffs. Sure, they may have had some rotten luck with refereeing in some games, but some were genuinely lost causes. But with the newly constructed roster, Skip Bayless thinks Bron now has no more excuses left.
Bayless has been questioning LBJ’s greatness all season, calling him all sorts of names. He wants to see if he has the closer gene, and with tonight’s performance, it’s obvious that many more rough nights are in store. An atrocious shooting performance by Bron was covered up by the brilliance of his teammates.
With a claimed 17-6 record, the Lakers would easily rise to the 4–5 seed, which would mean they play through the tournament, reaching the conference finals against the Suns. The Suns are tipped to win it all, so a loss against them wouldn’t damage his legacy too much, considering how the season started.
With such lofty claims, any failure would merely provide Skip with more fuel to the fire. He took potshots at LeBron for not competing in the dunk contest; do you think he’d let this slide? It’s all one big ruse to show that Bron is not at the level of Michael Jordan, and every loss only makes his case much stronger.
Can the Los Angeles Lakers reach the levels everyone is predicting them to?
The Los Angeles Lakers look like a new team with all the moves they made at the end of the trade deadline. They moved on from Russell Westbrook, a move that did not work. They surprisingly moved Thomas Bryant too, but in hindsight, it looks like everybody is winning.
After having everyone suit up, the Lakers won both of their games. The Warriors beat the New Orleans Pelicans convincingly just before the All-Star break. And tonight, against the depleted Warriors, they did not put a foot wrong. Sure, they allowed a few stretches that threatened a comeback, but they were confident in their abilities.
Darwin Ham can only mess this up by overthinking his rotations. The new team is built to take on effective roles at particular stretches; he just has to play them at the right times. Will Skip Bayless’s prediction come true? Almost every Laker fan secretly wants that to be true.
But we all know that Skip is only setting an unrealistic bar of expectation and will only hold Bron to that standard when they do not reach that goal.
